Wireless communications systems are widely deployed to provide various types of communication content such as voice, video, packet data, messaging, broadcast, and so on. These systems may be accessed by various types of access terminals adapted to facilitate wireless communications, where multiple access terminals share the available system resources (e.g., time, frequency, and power). Examples of such wireless communications systems include code-division multiple access (CDMA) systems, time-division multiple access (TDMA) systems, frequency-division multiple access (FDMA) systems and orthogonal frequency-division multiple access (OFDMA) systems.
As access terminals operate within the wireless communications system, each access terminal may periodically measure one or more parameters of neighboring cells. Such measurements, which may be referred to generally as power measurements, can be employed in determining whether an access terminal should remain on its current cell or switch to a different cell. Typically, a wireless communications system will have predetermined periods when such measurements are scheduled to occur.